like dead rabbit,” he said. “Don’t ask me how I know this.”
“I won’t.”
On Friday morning, she had three hours of free time while the company rehearsed Aida’s famous Triumphal March—a complex piece of staging that involved over a hundred performers, twenty-six dancers, and two horses, but fortunately, no elephants, not for this production. She used the time to schedule a meeting with her real estate agent and wasn’t surprised when Thad decided to tag along.
Refusing to meet Thad’s disapproving gaze, her Realtor showed her three of the apartments Thad had rejected. One, as he’d reported, lacked enough natural light. The second was almost perfect, but would be crowded with her piano. As for the third . . . It had a doorman, video camera surveillance, and plenty of room. The location was great, she could move in right away, and it smelled nothing like rabbit.
“I’ll take it,” she told her Realtor.
“You’ll regret it come Easter,” Thad said.
17
Of course someone had broken into her dressing room at the Muni while she was gone! Why not, when everything else was so messed up?
She whipped off her coat and tossed it on the chaise. Dressing room thefts happened. A dozen keys floated around. It could have been anyone. Maybe this was simply coincidence.
But she no longer believed in coincidence, and she began what had become an all-too-familiar routine of trying to see if anything was missing.
Unlike all the other times, something was. The thief had made off with her snack pack of almonds.
She sank onto the chaise. What did this person want? The only item of value she had with her was her Cavatina3, and that had been on her wrist. When was this going to end? If she told Thad, he’d plant himself at the Muni to watch over her, and that would make it look as if she’d turned her famous lover into her lackey. He’d do it, too, because that’s who he was.
Unthinkable. She wouldn’t let him humiliate himself.
* * *
Her Realtor pulled off a miracle, and Olivia used Sunday, her day off, to settle into her new video-surveilled, concierge-secured, furnished apartment. Her piano sat by the front windows, but she’d only begun opening up the boxes of mementos the movers had packed and delivered under Thad’s supervision.
He emerged from her kitchen with a banana. “I don’t know why you had to do this so fast.”
She held up a notepad she’d scribbled with the words, I’m on vocal rest.
“Only when it suits you.”
She smiled at the softness in his voice. He understood how much was at stake for her tomorrow. He understood everything.
“Grab your coat,” he said, after he’d polished off the banana. “This mess isn’t going anywhere, and there are some people I want you to meet.”
* * *
The Cooper Graham and Piper Dove Graham household was a noisy one. Their three-year-old twins, Isabelle and Will, fought over possession of two identical cardboard boxes while their father stood idly by. “Survival of the fittest,” Coop declared, as he showed Thad and Olivia into the family’s spacious, toy-cluttered great room at the rear of their Lincoln Park home. “Piper and I try not to get too involved unless bloodshed is imminent.”
Cooper Graham was the Stars’ former quarterback and Thad’s best friend. The instant the twins spotted Thad, their tug-of-war over the boxes turned into a race to see who could get to him first. Thad diplomatically scooped them both up at the same time, one under each arm. “Look what I’ve got. A pair of elephants.”
“We not elephants!” Will squealed.
“We monkeys!” Isabelle shrieked.
“Truth,” Coop said.
A pretty, dark-haired woman in leggings appeared and gave Thad a hug. Thad introduced them. “Liv, this is Piper, Coop’s deluded wife and the owner of Dove Investigations. Piper, this is the great Olivia Shore.”
Piper Dove Graham didn’t look anything like Olivia’s idea of a detective. No cigarette hung from the corner of her mouth, and the leggings she wore instead of a dirty trench coat revealed no sign of a paunch. “I feel like I should curtsy,” Piper said.
Her grin was so engaging that Olivia immediately laughed. “From what Thad’s told me, it should be the other way around. I’ve never met a detective, let alone a female one.”
“We’re pretty great,” Piper declared, with an even bigger smile.
“Liv’s on vocal rest,” Thad said. “And in case you’re wondering, that means she talks whenever she wants, but not if I ask her a question she doesn’t want to answer.”
Olivia nodded agreeably. “That’s true.”
Isabelle wanted Thad’s attention,